1845.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOISRNAL- 



335 



ENGLISH AND FOREIGN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 

 COMPARED. 



BY SIR JOHN AODI.EV.' 



Mr Rickman has attributed more pure simplicity auJ boldness of com- 

 position to Gothic architecture in England thaa elsewhere. My ac- 

 quaintance with Continental models is (I regret to say) very slight ; but 

 I think I can see that he is right, and can point out one or two leading 

 points in which our architectiiie is more pore, and one or two external 

 circumstances which, though they could not create the genius or the 

 taste might leave them more free to work out the unadulterated result of 

 their'owu principles. I do not speak of the Romanesque period, during 

 which our Norman architects were probably, both in art and in time, be- 

 hind their countrymen on the Continent ; nor (on account of my own 

 ignorance of the Flamboyant) of the latest period, when I must think that 

 architecture, however increasingly subservient to use and luxury, after 

 the day of ^^■ykehaIn, was on the decline as an /Esthetic art. For the 

 peculiar principles I only refer to the Master of Trinity, in whose obser- 

 vations on Rickman I shall strictly concur when, but not before, I have 

 added to them, that it was himself who inspired with a living soul the 

 oascent body produced by the patient and acute inductious of Rickman, 

 and which has since advanced so far towards adolescence. 



The favourini' circumstances which strike me are, first, the compara- 

 tive freedom from private war and locul disorder, and, secondly, the com- 

 parative want of Roman works. Private war and local disorder would 

 have far greater tendency than public, even though they were civil con- 

 flicts to waste and destroy local monuments, and consequently, to cause 

 that sense of insecurity, which will prevent their frequent and familiar 

 construction : hence, to prevent the art from becoming inbred in the minds, 

 and apparently indigenous in the soil of the country. One who twenty 

 jears ago h.id the early thin edition of Rickman in his pocket wherever 

 he travelled, has a right to say that every little village church, which has 

 been spared by time and churchwardens, proves such to be the case in 

 England. 



The same insecurity which would prevent the frequent construction, 

 would thwart that construction when it took place. Protection would be 

 necessary, even to the detriment of their architect urn I ends. This requires 

 no proof, but I imagine it to be illustrated in passing along the high road 

 through Herefordshire and Western Shropshire— borders countries, where, 

 I fancy, I see more than their proportion of rude and naked bulk in early 

 English and early-decorated towers ; but where, when the victories ot 

 Edward I. had given free scope to the arts of peace, I certainly observe 

 more than I have myself been elsewhere used to of the prevalence of 

 quiet and humble structures of the decorated style. 



It may be objected that the turbulent reign of Henry III. was that 

 which produced the glory of our native art, the early English, so pre- 

 eminently, if not quite peculiarly our own. The reiga of Henry III. was 

 turbulent ; but not so much so as it appears to posterity, in whose eye its 

 half century appears as a unit by the side of shorter reigns. Nor were 

 its wars private, whatever human intermixture of Iprivate violence they 

 may have involved. They were wars of public principle. A weak reign 

 alibrded the opportunity, whilst it succeeded to one whose united weak- 

 ness and violence called forth the necessity of claiming that increased 

 public liberty, for which the social improvement of the nation was ripen- 

 ing it. The age of Magna Charta is no less appropriately the age of early 

 English art, than the matured excellence of decorations coincides wfli the 

 settlement of our Parliamentary constitution under Edward I. 



Th-i student of Hallam and Kortescue, the best concise expositors of our 

 laws and liberties, and our consequent national greatness, will probably, 

 with me, divide the actual production of our happier state of things be- 

 tween Norma prerogative and Saxon liberty — the superincumbent pressure 

 of the crown having prevented the well-compacted social economy of the 

 humbler frames from being broken up as elsewhere (if elsewhere it existed) 

 by the all-pervading violence of the military tenants. It being important 

 to me to assume the fact, I may be excused in thus digressing to account 

 for it, in order to make it credible to those impressed with a general idea 

 of the lawlessness of that age. 



The favourable eU'ect of the absence of Roman works of art will be two- 

 fold. The eye will be less distracted by a beauty depending not only on 

 different butou antagonist principles ; and the architect will not be tempted, 

 or required by his employers to impair the free and full development of his 

 own style, by the use of materials (particularly old columns) too precious 

 to be rejected, yet difficult to be adapted. 



These two drawbacks have effectually prevented the formation in Italy 

 (except, perhaps, at Naples) of a school, though there was long a fashion 

 of pointed Gothic architecture in that country. This is conclusively shown 

 by the splendid work of Gaily Knight, the more conclusively, as it was 

 not his object to draw the conclusion. I must not be considered as under- 

 valuing, except in the single particular of the purity of Gothic art, the 

 edilices of other countries. I can tolerate those who may consider the 

 French or German, who make nearer approaches to purity than the Italians, 

 as on the whole our superiors in great edifices; and even in Italy I cau 

 admire sometimes even more than my judgment can approve ; and I may 

 both approve and admire a work not Gotliic. but stil generis. The match- 

 less splendour of Milan pleases a cultivated taste the less because it is 



* IteuU at llje late Wincliester Meeting. 



manifestly intended to be, what yet it 'is not, purely Gothic. That gem 

 the Capella della Spina, at Pisa, wants in its outlines the truthfulness of 

 Gothic art ; but he rauBt be such a master of language as I am not, who 

 can find words adequately, yet soberly, to extol the cathedral of Florence. 

 It is DWther classical, nor Romanesque, nor modern Roman, nor Gothic ; 

 but, with much of the bg:adth and expansion upon earth of the school 

 founded on classic art, it carries the eye and the mind up to heaven, and 

 onwards towards the unseen, in the truest spirit of the romantic. Me 

 scarcely need be told that its wonderful cupola is the first, in order to look 

 upon it as the must admirable of its kind which the country produced. 

 ^ et we must come home to Salisbury, Beverley, M'estminster, Tintern, 

 Lincoln, York, and Winchester. I place them in the chronological order 

 of the style to which (of the many which most of tliem contain) I attribute 

 in each the leading effect, — Early English pure — Early English, with all 

 the later styles admiiitbly harmonized to it — Early English, verging on 

 Decorated — Early English, passing into Decorated, Decorated and Per- 

 pendicular. 



I must not be supposed to be laying down rules without exceptions, 

 that what I have been impressed with on the prevalent taste ought to be 

 admitted by othera to be so. I have nut time, nor indeed materials to prove 

 — perhaps I may be wrong, but if I am not, it is still a chance— whether 

 their recollections of objects seen without any such idea having been sug- 

 gested to them, will bear me out, or whether if my observations should be 

 honoured with a place in their recollection, they will be confirmed by their 

 future experience. In English .Gothic we have scarcely any where but 

 at Canterbury the column substituted for the pier. Now, in [every one's 

 eye and mind, whether he have expressed it in words or not, the pier is 

 subordinate to the arch, but the column cannot be made subordinate to the 

 iutercolumniation. The column, where it exists, is always the thing dwelt 

 upon, and the intercolumnialiun, be it arched or not, dwindles into the mere 

 form which the column does not fill. This is contrary to the primary canon 

 that Gothic is the architecture of interiors, in which the supporting parts 

 are subordinate to the coutained space. 



In the eastern apse which our pointed architects scarcely ever con- 

 structed except at \Ve3tminster, or even adorned except at Tewkesbury, I 

 am inclined to admit that where it does not lead to narrow and wire- 

 drawn proportions, our continental neighbours have an advantage over us; 

 but in the long west window, so comparatively rare in the French west 

 fronts, we have an immeasurable advantage — it makes our great front more 

 oue, more ascending, more indicative of the contained nave than the win- 

 dow either circular or in which the circle is the prominent object. 



Some of the most admired French fronts have also a great prevalence of 

 horizontal lines carried through the two towers. Notre Dame is a known 

 instance, as far as I recollect, Amiens, Abbeville, Troyes, Sens, and many 

 others may be referred to, to show the prevalence of the taste. I am by no 

 means disposed to treat as a fault the almost Grecian ground-plan of many 

 of these buildings, but it certainly tends to produce a form in the profile of 

 which horizontal lines shall be conspi<;uous. Now in the great breadth of 

 the west front of York, though some may disapprove the low pitched roof, 

 or others the general proportion, yet the lines of buttress and window pre- 

 clude any such effect. Salisbury, though without towers, is in some de- 

 gree open to it. Lincoln is worse than any French building, but the fault 

 is in the Norman work. 



In richness and depth of moulding, and in the progress of roof tracery, 

 I believe that foreign buildings are of'teuer behind what would be suitable 

 to the general advance of enrichment than English. Canterbury has much 

 which I do not think English in character. 



If a horizontal eftect has been often directly given to French fronts, an 

 opposite cause has in some admirable German buildings impaired the elfect 

 of the division into bays vertically divided. The office of the buttress with 

 pinnacles not only to be the truthful index to the essential support of a 

 Gothic building, but to carry up the eye according to its enclosed parts, as 

 admirably arranged on the north aisle at M inchester, cannot be overrated. 

 But such is its office, and if from its too great projective proximity, and 

 want of setoff, the line of buttress form to the eye the outline of the build- 

 ing, as occurs in the glorious Cathedral of Cologne, it veils instead of ex- 

 hibiting llie form and character of the contained spaces. 



The great height, and consequent relative narrowness, of the parts of this 

 structure, has much tended to this effect; but where there is much fiat wall 

 often full of highly enriched parts, but still one wall with many enrich- 

 ments instead of a series of bays grouped into one harmonizing whole. 

 This often, with a narrow strip of window, too insignificant in breadth to 

 give individual character to the several bays, is, I believe, seen to prevail 

 10 the architecture of Nurenberg. It is more necessary to be guarded 

 against, as it is the very fault into which many of our recent attempts have 

 fallen. They have walls pierced with windows, they have sometimes 

 three windows under one gable, which never can satisfy the eye, though it 

 may not know the nature of the objection. 



I must regard the ostenlatious disproportion of the most celebrated 

 steeples of Germany to the rest of the building as a fault. I cau harflly 

 regret that Clm has never been carried up, yet who can object to Frey- 

 burg, completely as it overpowers the church. 



Yet more questionable is the gorgeous open-work of Strasburg, and 

 others of these structures. A pinnacle, which is au excrescence, may be 

 open, but not a leading member of the edifice itself, which ought to resist 

 the weather and shoot off the rain ; and there is a further objection where 

 the tower is crowned with a spire— a spire, whose silent finger points to 

 heaveu, has that silence broken over by the beautiful addition of crockets. 



47* 



